Children of Time, TARDISode 4: A Stitch in Time
by Wholmes Productions
Summary: "By the way - did I mention, it also travels in time?" What happened in those infamous few seconds that convinced the Ninth Doctor to renew his offer to Rose? Written in honour of the 50th Anniversary. Follow-on from 'Child of Time'.


Of all the sights Watson had seen thus far with the Doctor, he would have been hard pressed to imagine anything that could surpass the view before them now. Those blissful hours spent wandering the library had eventually taken him past the astronomy shelves, and he'd been unable to resist doing a little research... but he would never have expected the Doctor to take him and Holmes to see a black hole _and_ a supernova at the same time!

Now the Companions were standing in the open doorway of the TARDIS, watching in awe as a massive sphere of blazing energy slowly, silently bled iridescent fire into... well, how else could one describe it but as a _black hole_, which drew the eye irresistibly down into its starless depths...

Watson was dimly aware of the Doctor circling the console behind them, keeping a watchful eye on their position to ensure that _they_ didn't get too close... when his human colleague was startled from his reverie by a completely unexpected sound: an angry cry of "Oi!" from an unknown voice, echoed by the Doctor's startled "Hey!" then "_What?!_"

Who the devil...?! Holmes and Watson whirled in unison, gaping at the tableau: the Doctor was standing frozen to the spot, eyes wide; and matching him stare for stare was... a slightly shorter, older-looking man wearing a black jacket made of leather, with close-cropped hair and decidedly prominent ears.

"Who the hell are you –" Holmes noted distantly that the stranger's accent was Northern, "and what are you doing on my TARDIS?" Oh...

The Doctor raised both eyebrows, muttering, "Blimey, I don't remember being _that_ rude..."

Watson's jaw dropped. "Good God...!"

Holmes' own eyebrows were raised as he murmured, "Curiouser and curiouser..." then winced at his own shocking grammar; he should never have persuaded himself to read Lewis Carroll after their victory at the Globe.

The... younger? Doctor folded his arms. "I'd better not have to ask again."

The older incarnation cleared his throat, nodding over to the door where his Companions still stood.

The younger Time Lord gave him a distrustful look, but turned all the same – and his eyes widened. "Sherlock Holmes and John Watson!" The forbidding expression melted into a brilliant smile, and he hastened forward, hand extended. "Hello, I'm the Doctor!"

Watson automatically shook hands, unable to stop staring – it was one thing to hear about the Doctor's regenerative abilities, or to study the medlab archives... but to actually _meet_ an earlier version... However, there was no doubt in Watson's mind that this truly was the Doctor. Besides the obvious similarities – manic grin, barely contained energy – the pair shared the same ancient air of authority, the mantle of their centuries-long lives sitting equally heavily upon their shoulders...

Holmes meanwhile had shot a suspicious glance at the still-beaming older Time Lord – had their host known about this meeting when he first encountered him in Tibet? Putting the thought aside for the moment, he smiled pleasantly at the younger Doctor, also shaking hands. "A pleasure to meet you, Doctor..." _Again... _"Please forgive the intrusion."

The younger Doctor glanced over his shoulder at his older counterpart, then turned back to Holmes. "Oh, I get the feeling that you're not the ones intruding. Sorry about that – travelling alone, me, and I get a bit jumpy." His eyes, Holmes was dismayed to see, were even more anguished than _his_ Doctor's had been in Lhasa – such loneliness, grief and despair in their depths...

The detective's brow furrowed as one more detail intruded itself. There was a very faint scent clinging to the younger Time Lord's leather jacket, a young lady's perfume: rose, violet and hawthorn, surprisingly delicate despite its inferior quality – Miss Tyler's, perhaps? At a loss for what to say – who knew if one ill-considered word might cause a serious paradox at this juncture? – Holmes cast a pleading look at the older Doctor.

That Doctor nodded slightly, addressing his younger self. "Early days for you, then."

The younger turned back again. "Yeah. So... you're next up?"

"Yep."

Ah, and there was the classic Eyebrow. "What was I trying to do, impress a girl?" The younger's eyes widened at his elder's blush. "I _was_? Aren't we a little old for that?"

The older Doctor cleared his throat pointedly. "Can we talk?" He nodded his head toward the corridor.

The younger echoed the nod, frowning slightly. "Course."

* * *

The younger Doctor gazed expectantly at his older self as they stepped out into the corridor. He wasn't actually concerned about this situation—not yet. Meetings between versions of himself rarely went well, but they just as rarely ended badly. "All right," he said quietly, "so..."

"When've you just come from?"

"You should remember." That was how these things went: the older self never remembered events fully until they'd already transpired, but the buried memories _were_ jostled.

"Yeah, I do, which is why I'm worried." The Doctor could say one thing for his older, younger-looking self: he had impressive eyebrows. Rather put him in mind of Hugo Weaving... "Just think: why would you be here like this in the first place?"

"I had the TARDIS parked nearby..."

"I know—that's why I'm showing them this, because I remember coming across it. But that's not enough to weaken our timelines to the point where they cross involuntarily."

Oh, he knew where this was going... "I haven't done anything!" Nothing with that kind of temporal significance!

"You just defeated the Nestene Consciousness."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Someone was with you."

"Yes, she was. And she stayed behind with her idiot boyfriend." The slight bitterness in the Doctor's voice surprised himself. He'd liked Rose Tyler well enough, sure, but to be bitter over her choosing to stay with her boyfriend over travelling with him in the TARDIS? It wasn't like it was a safe life; he could really hardly blame her. Most humans wanted to live in safety—that's why he was around.

His older self sighed. "Blimey, and I was this thick, too..."

"Oi!"

The older Doctor stared hard at him. _Figure it out._

The younger frowned back, eyes wide. "But I offered! She said no!"

"And yet here we are, with our timelines weakening to the point where my memories are starting to fluctuate."

"She said no," the Doctor repeated more firmly. If the fault was his, fine, he could accept that. But if it was contingent upon someone else's refusal...

"Think!"

So he did, replaying the conversation in his head.

"_Right then, I'll be off, unless, ah... I don't know, you could come with me. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."_

"_Don't. He's an alien. He's a thing."_

"_He's not invited. What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere."_

"_Is it always this dangerous?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Yeah, I can't. I've, ah, I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so..."_

"_Okay. See you around."_

...there was one thing he hadn't mentioned. His mouth fell open. "...it was that simple?"

His older self rolled his big dark eyes incredulously. "Of course! You rescue a girl in a time machine and fail to emphasise that it travels in Time! Makes all the sense in the world!"

"All right, all right!" He threw up his hands. "Blimey, how did I ever get this snippy?" The older man opened his mouth, and the younger cut him off. "Wait, no, sorry. Don't want a repeat of the Omega business."

The two shared a shudder and a look of perfect understanding. The second and third Doctors meeting had been the worst of all...

"Right, then!" the Doctor said cheerily. "Shall we get me back to where I'm supposed to be?" Travelling with Rose Tyler could be fun. She had pluck and sass and some smarts. _Pretty, too,_ a voice in his mind added, and he quickly shut it up. That wasn't necessary.

"Doctor," said the other with a smile, "it would be my pleasure." He gestured for the younger to go first, then followed him back to the console.

* * *

"All right, then." The younger Doctor started pressing buttons and flipping switches, and the older Doctor stepped forward to help, opening his mouth. "No, don't."

The Doctor closed his mouth with a glare, and his younger self spoke without looking up. "You were about to say something about reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, I just know it." He looked up then with a flash of a grin. Thick _and_ cheeky.

"And you're the one who didn't want a repeat of the past," the Doctor muttered.

"Nope!" the younger said, all-too-brightly. He smiled up at Holmes and Watson. "Sorry, this happens every time I meet myself—I never get along."

Watson's lips twitched with the obvious need to laugh, the traitor. Holmes sighed and murmured to him: "One would think he'd be better at it by now!"

The younger Doctor's head snapped back up with an indignant look. "Oi!"

"Never mind—he does that; he's Sherlock Holmes," said the older Doctor. He glanced down at the other's progress. "You close?"

"Yup. One last switch ought to do it." The younger Doctor looked back up at the Companions, hope and wonder in his eyes and no loneliness. The older Doctor was starting to remember fully at last, and, at that point in his life, he'd had so much to look forward to. A new Companion and the assurance of two more in the future. Especially with his having just come away from the Time War, he couldn't have asked for better. "It's been fantastic meeting the two of you."

Watson nodded, smiling. "And you also, Doctor." The two humans bowed slightly. "Until we meet again."

The younger Doctor turned to the older with childlike glee. "Victorian manners," he said quietly; "I love it." Now _that_, the Doctor certainly couldn't argue with. "All right, I'm off, then!"

"Wait, Doctor?" said the older.

Blue eyes regarded him questioningly.

The Doctor smiled fully. For once... things didn't hurt so badly. "You're about to enter one of the best times of our lives. Make the most of it."

The younger smiled back, and the older was struck by just how much of a difference that smile made. That brilliant smile made the still half-soldier Time Lord every bit the Doctor he was supposed to be. "I will." He flipped the switch and literally vanished into thin air.

At last, the Doctor's memories settled, and if there was a twinge in his chest, he ignored it.

* * *

The Doctor heaved a sigh and stuffed his hands in his pockets, gazing at the spot where his younger self had stood.

"...well..." A nonplussed Watson searched in vain for anything else to say, finally giving up.

Holmes shook his head, lips twitching at his friend's dumbfounded countenance. "Well – I rather think that encounter trumped the black hole hands down..."

The Doctor gave him a brief smirk. "It was partly because of the black hole," he explained quietly. "That was a weak point in my timeline – the convergence of the supernova and the black hole made it worse."

Watson slowly nodded. "I gather this sort of thing happens on a fairly regular basis?"

"It's not really supposed to – meeting yourself is dangerous. The Time Lords could handle the adverse effects back in the day, but now..." He shrugged. "It's happened a few times."

"And every time, you have to resist the temptation to warn yourself about the future..." Watson said softly.

"Mm..." The Doctor returned to the present. "In this case, I had to – sort of. Had to set the future back on track, anyway." He smiled faintly. "Kind of remember this, too – although it got pushed to the back of my mind when I was with Rose." And Watson noted with relief that, if only this once, the Doctor's voice had not held its usual undertone of sadness when he mentioned Miss Tyler's name.

Holmes frowned thoughtfully. Could it have been his and Watson's presence here that had weakened the Doctor's timeline? He shook his head – they'd probably never know, he wasn't even sure he wanted to. Besides, any potential disaster from the paradox seemed to have been averted.

Watson smiled warmly at their host. "I trust this was worth the wait, then?"

The Doctor smiled back. "Mm. Well, time we were getting on, too! Any ideas?"

The two humans exchanged glances, grinning at their mirrored expressions of inquiry.

"Not this time, Doctor." Watson knew what he was about to say was incredibly risky, but once again, he simply couldn't resist... "By all means, surprise us."

The Doctor flashed his Companions a brilliant grin, eyes shining like twin supernovas. "All right..." And as Holmes closed the TARDIS door, the Time Lord threw down the lever. "Hold on, then!"

* * *

**Author's note from Sky:**

This little story came out of a reviewer asking us if we'd do something special for the 50th Anniversary. So we did... we just were completely unready to post it on time! When trying to figure out what would be appropriate for a TARDISode celebrating the anniversary, I suggested we bring in the Doctor that we knew would not be taking an active role in _The Day of the Doctor_: Nine!

Writing him was so completely wonderful—I hadn't written him in well over a year, and I found that fourteen months of using Ten's voice hadn't eliminated my ability to use Nine's as well! So Happy Belated Anniversary, Doctor Who, and Merry Christmas to you all!

**Author's note from Ria:**

Indeed – Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that other heartwarming stuff. I'm planning to ask Santa for lots of tissues for the Christmas special... *sniff*

Hope to see y'all in Episode 7!


End file.
